Thursday, June 28, 2012

(A
reading of Blogs #37-#41is a good introduction, but not necessary, to the
subject matter of this entry; the series concerns Daenya’s process of personal
identification with Berniece from August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.) Today we’ll
begin looking at the importance of the script. Of course, Daenya had read the
play before beginning her analysis of Berniece’s character; first she had
prepared a scene and later began working on the monologue in Act Two, which she
has approached over and over again, but never conquered. Constant re-reading of the script is
necessary, especially when changing focus from one acting process to another.
At this moment, it seems that Daenya is switching from subjective (sense
memory) to objective (script analysis), but I hope to demonstrate that in the
case of the actor, subjective and objective are inseparable.

Daenya
is not planning to write a scholarly paper on the subject of Berniece in relation
to African/American relations in the 1930’s – no, she is going to embody her.
Not just her head, but surely her whole body and something indefinable, which
many would call her ‘soul.’ However, to walk in Berniece’s shoes Daenya needs
to know more not less, than a scholar about what it ‘feels like’
to be Berniece. She is going to be
‘Berniece in motion.’ The scholar is helped by identifying emotionally with the
character he is writing about, but he can sit hunched over his computer
spinning out words, while Berniece has to get up in an audition and convince a
group of strangers that she is
Berniece.

The
script is always very important, but in the case of The Piano Lesson, it’s about as important as a piece of dramatic
writing can get. It won a Pulitzer
Prize, the second of Wilson’s plays to do so, as well as a Tony and the Outer
Critics Circle Award. I haven’t seen it, and I wonder if anything could surpass
Wilson’s superb, Joe Turner’s Come and
Gone, which I had the privilege to view during its first incarnation.

I
also re-read The Piano Lesson, partly
because I wanted to see it through Daenya’s eyes, which were now so much more
open after all the work she had done on researching and re-experiencing her
background and the troubled relationship with her mother. But nothing could
have prepared me for the personal epiphany that awaited me in the final scene.

Why
does a play win a Pulitzer Prize – or a film an Oscar - or a Palme D’Or at
Cannes? There are many reasons, of course, but the one that is most interesting
to me is how the central idea of a dramatic piece speaks to the audience
through the development of its characters. This is normal, since I work with
actors to embody the characters. In reading The Piano Lesson this last time
what I did not expect was my own sense of identification with Berniece, which
is of interest here because it relates to my own sense memory work - for
acting, for teaching others to act and also for my own writing.

I’m
going into a bit of a digression here, because this way of reading to act a
role is very difficult to clarify, and I want to make it as accessible as
possible. In a much earlier Blog entry
(labeled blog #2, August 2011) I explained in detail how I, myself, had begun
to understand the workings of sense memory. I’m sorry to talk about myself so
much, but this is the only way to make this particular point. I have mentioned
the fact that my mother died of cancer when I was four, and I have always known
that I had to find how the trauma of her death had affected me.

I
had totally disassociated myself from memories related to her death, and
although I could remember the placement of the furniture in the house we had
back then, I was incapable of remembering her inhabiting that house. I
described a memory I had as a child, looking out my bedroom window at the road
that lay at the end of a lane in front of our house. After this memory kept
coming up again and again, I finally realized that I was waiting for my mother
to return – and that I had spent my whole life, up to the point when I became
aware of this memory, unconsciously awaiting her return. I realized that I
always waited instead of acting on impulses about things I wanted to do, and
this was the reason: the trauma of my mother’s death had been so great that I had
been unable and unwilling to actually ‘live’ my life, because I was actually living
in a state of expectation that she would come back.

I’ve gone through many stages of awareness with
this memory and learned various ways to harness its energy in various acting
and teaching opportunities. In my next blog entry I will endeavor to explain
how this memory - having spawned creative responses of different sorts,
ultimately lead me to an instantaneous
and profound awareness of Berniece’s state of mind in this play…

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

(A reading of Blog entries #37-#41 is a good introduction, but not necessary, to the subject matter of this entry; it concerns Daenya’s process of personal identification with Berniece from August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.)Today we’ll begin looking at the importance of the script. Of course, Daenya had read the play before beginning her analysis of Berniece’s character; first she had prepared a scene and later began the monologue in Act Two, which she has approached over and over again, but never conquered.Constant re-reading of the script is necessary, especially when changing focus from one acting process to another. At this moment, it seems that Daenya is switching from subjective (sense memory) to objective (script analysis), but I hope to demonstrate that in the case of the actor, subjective and objective are inseparable.

Daenya is not planning to write a scholarly paper on the subject of Berniece in relation to African/American relations in the 1930’s – no, she is going to embody her. Not just her head, but surely her whole body and something indefinable, which many would call her ‘soul.’ However, to walk in Berniece’s shoes Daenya needs to know more not less, than a scholar about what it ‘feels like’ to be Berniece.She is going to be ‘Berniece in motion.’ The scholar is helped by identifying emotionally with the character he is writing about, but he can sit hunched over his computer spinning out words, while Berniece has to get up in an audition and convince a group of strangers that she is Berniece.

The script is always very important, but in the case of The Piano Lesson, it’s about as important as a piece of dramatic writing can get.It won a Pulitzer Prize, the second of Wilson’s plays to do so, as well as a Tony and the Outer Critics Circle Award. I haven’t seen it, and I wonder if anything could surpass Wilson’s superb, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, which I had the privilege to view during its first incarnation.

I also re-read The Piano Lesson, partly because I wanted to see it through Daenya’s eyes, which were now so much more open after all the work she had done on researching and re-experiencing her background and the troubled relationship with her mother. But nothing could have prepared me for the personal epiphany that awaited me in the final scene.

Why does a play win a Pulitzer Prize – or a film an Oscar - or a Palme D’Or at Cannes? There are many reasons, of course, but the one that is most interesting to me is how the central idea of a dramatic piece speaks to the audience through the development of its characters. This is normal, since I work with actors to embody the characters. In reading The Piano Lesson this last time what I did not expect was my own sense of identification with Berniece, which is of interest here because it relates to my own sense memory work - for acting, for teaching others to act and also for my own writing.

I’m going into a bit of a digression here, because this way of reading to act a role is very difficult to clarify, and I want to make it as accessible as possible.In a much earlier Blog entry (labeled blog #2, August 2011) I explained in detail how I, myself, had begun to understand the workings of sense memory. I’m sorry to talk about myself so much, but this is the only way to make this particular point. I have mentioned the fact that my mother died of cancer when I was four, and I have always known that I had to find how the trauma of her death had affected me.

I had totally disassociated myself from memories related to her death, and although I could remember the placement of the furniture in the house we had back then, I was incapable of remembering her inhabiting that house. I described a memory I had as a child, looking out my bedroom window at the road that lay at the end of a lane in front of our house. After this memory kept coming up again and again, I finally realized that I was waiting for my mother to return – and that I had spent my whole life, up to the point when I became aware of this memory, unconsciously awaiting her return. I realized that I always waited instead of acting on impulses about things I wanted to do, and this was the reason: the trauma of my mother’s death had been so great that I had been unable and unwilling to actually ‘live’ my life, because I was actually living in a state of expectation that she would come back.

I’ve gone through many stages of awareness with this memory and learned various ways to harness its energy in various acting and teaching opportunities. In my next blog entry I will endeavor to explain how this memory - having spawned creative responses of different sorts, ultimately lead me to an instantaneous and profound awareness of Berniece’s state of mind in this play…

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

(For full comprehension of this
discussion, please refer to Blogs #37-#40.) At this point, Daenya already knows
a lot about interacting with other characters in scenes. She knows that any
relationship in acting always begins with the actors listening and responding
to each other, as themselves – before the elements of characterization are
introduced. It sounds simple, but actors discover that every step of these
‘interactions’ has to be worked out.

Since Daenya is focusing on a
monologue, why does she have to worry about partner acting? Because she is
talking to someone - Avery, in this scene – and I would argue that even if her
speech were a soliloquy that every word she says includes ‘a partner’ or
‘partners.’ The sensory objects you place in the scene are affecting you – and
are, in a sense, your partners - but that is a subject I have already discussed
and will discuss again on its own, at a later date.

When Daenya was studying in my
group classes, the curriculum was divided into two sessions per week:
monologues in one and scenes in the other. The focus of the monologue class was
‘working through the body’- which included relaxation, breathing, vocal
expression - and sense memory; the scene study part consisted of ‘working off
the partner,’ figuring out objectives, playing actions and Meisner
improvisations. In early blogs entries, I introduced a discussion of these
methods. However, there is a lot more to be said – in fact one could go on ad
infinitum, since what we are talking about here is the psychology of all human
behavior. (One of these days I’ll be
ready to tackle Thomas Richard’s superb book, At Work with Grotowski on Physical Actions!)

Each section of my group class
included aspects of the other’s methodology. For example, we worked out beats,
actions and objectives for the monologues and found sensory objects for the partner
work in the scenes. But time was always short, and actors often got lost when rehearsing
on their own. Putting sense memory
together with the more objective partner work is usually a huge issue for
actors. A student who is stronger in ‘working off the partner’ will completely
lose their bearings when attempting to ‘bring in’ sense memory – because that’s
not how the process works. (Sense memory is like breathing – you don’t think
about it because oxygen is embedded in your body and surrounding you at the
same time. You have to train yourself to be aware of memories during times when
you are not acting, per se.)

If students have previously
studied only Meisner, they are innately suspicious of sensory work – even when
they are aware that ‘something is missing’ – and that is the reason they are
trying a new class with a different curriculum! Those who have learned sensory
work (Method) incorrectly - from the point of view of ‘matching people and
events in their own life directly to the text’ - have the worst time of all
because they are occupied in a fruitless activity which excludes the partner!
Perhaps this is the reason that Meisner has edged out Method in modern acting
training. That doesn’t work because it’s like trying to win a Marathon without
breathing! There are actors who claim
they never use sense memory, but perhaps they are not aware that they are doing
it.

Why is it so difficult to
integrate these methods? The consciousness of a good actor is unusually precise
and expanded like the ear of a musician, eye of a painter and the strength and
grace of a dancer’s body. The actor has to be an ‘emotional acrobat’ but
emotions depend on an unusually attuned body/mind connection. Otherwise, they
just disappear and you don’t feel a thing; you’re a puppet without a ‘string
puller.’

When Daenya returned to
Berniece’s monologue in The Piano Lesson,
she disappeared into the past. She was back in Jamaica with her mother, wearing
that evocative blue dress; it consumed her – just as Berniece is stuck like a
fly in amber with her mother and the memories of playing her beloved piano. The
effect is paralyzing; it is airless and has no movement.

But acting isn’t interesting
unless the character is traveling toward a destination – which means that the
actor must be ‘traveling’ also. The character mirrors the actor’s journey. If
this ‘movement’ is lacking the audience starts to fidget. It’s the same thing
in life; we are bored by people who are ‘going nowhere’ – unless they are
desperately trying to go somewhere and failing. This is Berniece’s case. What is Berniece trying to do? She often appears
to be sitting around feeling sorry for herself, but if that were true we
couldn’t watch a play about her; she would put us to sleep! No, she is fighting
every step of the way, even though you need to read the play carefully to see
exactly how she does this. What does she want so badly?

Next week I will begin a
discussion of the script, as this is where this journey generally begins.
Sometimes work is improvised, but then one must listen very carefully to the
conditions that the director lays down.
If the script isn’t fully realized, and the actor is allowed to develop
his/her own character – again the actor must pay attention to the ‘set-up’ that
has already been put in place.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

(For full comprehension of this entry, please refer to
Blogs, #37-39) What have we discovered so far in helping Daenya to locate
within herself the ‘abyss’ inhabited by Berniece’s character in August Wilson’s
The Piano Lesson? We see that it can
take years for someone to accept the ‘burden of their own pain.’ We have
demonstrated that the negative feelings in one’s own childhood must be
re-experienced so the actor can locate the character’s ‘burden of pain’ within
themselves. Daenya acknowledged that the way in which she distanced herself from
her mother was due to an underlying anger at what she believed was ‘desertion’
when she was a small child. By doing further research, she discovered that her
mother had been a hero, not someone who had just walked out on her so she could
go to America. Although that doesn’t seem logical given the circumstances of
her leaving, it is how a small child experiences the absence of a mother, and
that impression remains unless it is brought up from the unconscious.

I asked her to specify how she was able to finally ‘feel’
this truth – not just know it in her head.
This is how Daenya put it: “When I was back home, I did that exercise we
always do - the breathing and relaxing - and then I asked myself, ‘How can I
find my mom, my real mom.’ You see, we really didn’t communicate when she was
alive. She worked so hard right up to the point when she died – although she’d
had to retire – arthritis – then she kept the house for my dad. And I think she couldn’t really talk to me because
she felt guilty about leaving - even though she knew she had to do it to keep
me and my sister safe.”

At this point, Daenya could barely continue speaking. I
shoved the Kleenex box toward her and gently urged her on, “When you asked
yourself ‘How can I find my mom,’ what happened? Breathe, breathe into your
diaphragm, and you’ll be able to go on. This is just like acting. You’re going
to feel these things when you act and you’ll have to breathe and say your
lines… You won’t be able to stop and compose yourself; you’ll have to continue
right in the middle of the emotion.”

Daenya struggled with her breath and found a way to
continue. “I saw my mom in the kitchen back home. She was so vulnerable, so
real - younger than I am now. She had on
this blue dress she used to wear all the time. A particular blue, it comes from
the Island. It was nice, she always kept it clean. Looking at her from the
point of view of a five-year-old she was pretty - even from the back. I could
see her arms working; they looked so strong kneading the loaf – and I could smell
the one that was already in the oven. She was humming, I remembered that she
used to do that and she had a voice, very light and clear. When I saw her in
later years she had changed so much and I don’t remember her singing at all.”

We sat there not saying anything for a while, and then I
told her, “This is the beginning of all the acting you will ever do. You are
inside now. Look at all the details and all the twists and turns your story has
taken to get to this point. You haven’t wanted to look at a lot of this – you
couldn’t until you were ready. But by going step by step, you ‘are’ Berniece
and all the other characters you want to play. You can find everything in this
central story of your own life. You’ve faced a lot to get here. You are brave and
you have what I call a ‘fierce intelligence.’ Actors are fierce people; we
fight for our characters, no matter who they are. We are great humanists. When
we do our job right, people who watch us are able to feel more about issues in
their own lives and gain a little insight into the people with whom they have
difficulties. It’s weird how it works. People don’t understand us at all, they
have no idea how we do it – maybe some psychologists - but that’s about it. I
call this painstaking process, ‘the math of acting.’ There’s a particular logic
to everyone’s life. We run away from pain toward what we want. Actors must
mirror that journey, the difference from other people is that we do it
consciously and continuously, we do it professionally.”

“How can I go through this all the time?” Daenya asked.

“Go through what?” I responded. Honestly, how do you feel
right now?

“OK,” Daenya answered.

“You’re not going to go home and slit your wrists?”

“No, of course not,” she laughed. She went and had lunch
with her daughter instead. Next week, we will discuss why Daenya was OK after
such an emotional experience.And the
sensory objects she has so painstakingly established will become the basis for
other elements of the Integrated Acting Process.